Jerkface
by chezchuckles
Summary: a post-ep for 7x04 "Child's Play." thanks to jyleafer15 for awesome cover art.


**Jerkface**

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><p>a post-ep for Child's Play 7x04<p>

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><p>She crawls into bed, straddling his thigh with her knees, her hands planted in the mattress near his head. She meant to wake him softly, smiling down at him, a good end to a perfectly normal case, a few bruised ribs but no lasting damage. She meant to be smiling, but as she stares at his sleeping form, it sinks over her again.<p>

Where was he for two months? Why did he stay away? It trembles through her, makes the mattress quiver.

_Don't leave me again._

It's not just Alexis and Martha who are having trouble.

He left for two months; he was gone - with or without his consent - but _gone._

Why? Who is this man she's engaged to? She was going to marry him that day; she planned on having kids with him, sharing that life, diving right into it come what may.

But he left her. (_Did_ he leave her?)

He came back. (Why did he go?)

In the darkness, it's impossible for her to open her mouth and call his name even though she knows when his eyes open and he smiles, all her doubts will disappear. It's impossible because he _left_ her, he left her, he made a good-bye video and everything, and she's still mentally curled up, fetal position, has been since she saw the security camera footage of him leaving money to have the SUV crushed.

Jerkface.

It burns in her throat and she closes her eyes, but the righteous indignation of being _left_, being abandoned, everything she loves _leaves her_-

But he asked for a kiss and she gave him an accusation instead. In her way, she left him too.

Kate sinks back to her haunches, carefully avoiding his knee that aches him after being thrown around, avoiding touching him at all.

They're both at the name-calling stage, she thinks, and with good reason. Castle left her and she accused him of it.

She loves him; she aches to love him like she needs to. He must ache for it too; she can see it sometimes, the way it crawls behind his eyes in the early morning before he can mask it, when the day is still fresh and pink and the night's sleep has made them both forget for an instant where they are and who they've been.

She still cries in the shower.

She wonders if he does too.

Kate shifts back onto her hands and knees again, stares down at this man she knows and doesn't know, tells herself _even if there are things he's never said, he loves me_. She tells herself, _I don't have to know, even though he knows all my worst, darkest places._

He loves her. She loves him. They will get there, back to the giddy rush of _finally. _Finally, she has him. Finally they're getting married. Finally the wait is over.

One day.

His eyes blink open.

"Beck-?"

Tenderness wells in her, along with a smile. "Hey, Jerkface," she says softly, touching a kiss under his eye. "How'd play-time with Alexis go?"

Rumbling laughter, crooked smile from him. "Mm, good. It's all good," he mumbles, lashes falling again. The nightlight from the bathroom makes them shine gold, paints softer shadows at his cheek and chin, inscrutability on the dark side.

His face is slack with the relaxation of his deep sleep, but he shifts under her and skates two fingers along her forearm. Not smiling, but content; he could go either way. Drifting, waiting for her to make the call.

"How's paperwork?" he yawns.

She dips a kiss to his open mouth, catching the corner, and he grunts in surprise, fingers tightening on her elbow even as she lowers her body beside his in the bed.

"Kate?"

"Paperwork was monotonous, bureaucratic, and in triplicate."

"Per usual," he adds, turning in bed to face her though his eyes are still closed. His hand comes between them, but she's landed so close that his fingers dust under her chin. She kisses each knuckle.

He's only been back for a scatter of weeks.

"Why I stayed away," he grins.

Her heart stops.

And beats again, realization flooding her - _paperwork_. Why he stayed away. Yes, that. Right.

"Thought you had to fix things with your mother-hen of a daughter," she says softly, lightly, still watching him and his closed eyes and his ease and his sense that life is a big playground. "Thought that's why you stayed away."

"Mm, that too. Yeah."

"How's your collarbone?" she whispers, tracing her fingers over the spot where he was kicked. Stomped.

"Yeah, hurts. It's okay." His words are mere impressions, mostly the sounds of things and the way it feels listening to him. She could pick out his tone and his inflection, his sense and his meaning from miles away. She could follow his voice home.

"I know you're falling asleep but - indulge me?" she murmurs, hating how her voice catches.

His eyes flare open. Blink.

His hand spreads under her chin and slides around to the nape of her neck, cradling. "Kate?"

"Martha and Alexis have been letting you get away with murder but I-"

"You haven't," he fills in, stroking her jaw with his thumb. "You've kept us normal."

"Is that why you haven't tried it with me?"

"What?" he whispers.

"No outrageous demands from you, not even a pity party, not that sad puppy look-"

"I believe it's technically the _kicked_ puppy look, Beckett. Which I've perfected. Should I choose to use it, you're powerless to resist me."

She rolls her eyes, but it's done the job, broken up the grief that keeps hardening around her heart, like walls.

"Come 'ere." He drags her the scant four inches left between them and she falls into his bruised shoulder, against his chest as he lies on his back with a long sigh. She curls her arm up, presses her palm flat to his warm shirt, the heat of his skin radiating through.

Feels his heart beating.

That was the thing she couldn't conjure up in the dead of night alone. His heartbeat. She couldn't get a rhythm down, couldn't make it keep going, couldn't remember how it felt thudding just under her ear.

She has it back now. Right here. How could it not have been burned into her own body? It's so pervasive, his heart.

"Now that you mention it, I have an outrageous demand," he whispers into the darkness.

She rubs her thumb over the shirt, feels the hard ridge of his collarbone. "What's that?" She lets out a little breath, keeping it shallow so she can still hear his heart. "I'm not waiting on you hand and foot, fanning you while I feed you grapes."

"There's a thought."

"That's a no."

His fingers comb her hair back from her jaw, tuck it behind her ear. She hears his heart pick up.

"Can we make one day - one day soon."

_Are you going to marry him?_

"One day soon," she echoes, but she feels the question in it.

"Indulge _me_," he husks. The emotion in his voice makes her want to cry, suddenly, swiftly, without warning.

She presses her face into his shirt and breathes slowly, cotton and laundry detergent and a little aftershave that must have dripped to his collar this morning when he shaved.

"Okay," she gets out finally. "Soon."

All she can promise.

* * *

><p>She imagines what she'll say. She's nervous and her fingers are sweating against the box in her hand and she swears she will never again make him go through this for her because this is torture. No <em>wonder<em> he looked like he was going to break up with her.

She tries to plan every step, she tries to rehearse it in her her head, every word. The conference room; he's out to grab them lunch; the boys are in on it. She tries to come up with the perfect thing to say that will tell him exactly how it is and why they are good - very good, so good - right where they are.

_I want you to know that I never gave up on you even when I gave up on us._

She's not saying that. Who's the jerkface now?

But what is she saying?

The box is slippery now in her palm, all her nervous anxiety rising like a wave in her stomach. She paces the conference room and wonders if maybe this was entirely the wrong 'setting.'

Oh, hell, she's making nervous jokes like him now. Wrong setting. With the box in her hand and-

Okay, okay, think. Think, what to say, how to explain. Make it sound good. Make it not sound like saying no, like she's putting him off, like she didn't betray him with her momentary faithlessness when the evidence started to stack up against him.

She just has no words. She just doesn't.

Maybe she should have stripped off all her clothes and called him into their bedroom and done that instead. He likes that. She likes that. A lot. It would be so much better than this right now in front of everyone in the bullpen.

Castle's knuckles rap on the conference room door and he sticks his head inside, grinning. "Food's here. Esposito said you wanted-"

"Come in. Come here," she husks, closing her eyes tightly a second.

"Oh-kay." He slides inside the conference room, glances around. "Hey, who died?" he chuckles.

"Babe, this is important." She takes a step towards him, feeling it in her guts, the whole thing, just how very important this is for them. But it's even worse now; her mind has gone completely blank. She takes in a breath and lifts her hand, the box on her palm and so light, offering it up to him.

"What's this?" he says, plucking it right off her hand and attacking it. He opens the little white box before she can even start. "Is this from the crime scene? I didn't see it. Why'd you hide-"

His astonishment wipes out his words.

She still doesn't have hers either, but she needs to do this.

Kate goes slowly to her knees before him, remembers at the last second what she's doing here and she shifts to just one knee, blushing as she realizes it was force of habit and he's raising an eyebrow at her because he _knows_ that-

"Not crossing that one off your list," she warns.

He's still just kind of mutely staring down at her.

Whatever. Fine. This is still salvageable. "Richard. Edgar. Castle. Will you-"

"Oh, God."

"-set a date with me? Set a date - if you'll have me after all of this - if you can trust me even-"

"Yes," he croaked, already reaching down and gripping her elbows, hauling her off the floor. She can faintly hear catcalls and applause through the glass windows and before she can do anything else, Castle cups her face and kisses her, the ring box still in his grip and digging into her cheek.

Everything disappears. Evaporates, invisible, washed away. No words necessary.

When he breaks softly from her mouth, her eyes flutter open.

He's grinning, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "You got me a mangagement ring?"

"Manage you?" she husks, repeating what she hears. Her throat is thick with that kiss, with the look in his eyes.

He laughs. "Male engagement ring. Man-gagement. How does this one - work?"

She blinks and lifts her hand to catch his, cups his wrist to bring the box down between them. The blinds are up in the conference room - she did that purposefully because it matters to him that everyone shares their moments - but he's only looking at her.

"It's made to fit around the band," she says. "It's oxidized silver because you wanted the black but we chose the titanium for your band and maybe it's-"

"Perfect, Kate," he murmurs. "Beautiful."

His fingers interrupt hers at the box, pull out the band. It looks like a capital letter H, the arms and legs of the H meeting up on the other side to form the band. It makes a slit where his wedding ring will fit inside - one day.

She takes it from him, cups his wide left hand in hers, and she nudges the band down over his knuckle to fit snugly. The cross-hatch of the H is rounded where it will cradle his wedding band, but until now, it claims him.

As hers.

It holds her place for her, for that wedding band, for one day.

She lifts her face to him and he's grinning back at her, his other hand catching her engagement ring and playing with it, reminding her that he's noticed she wears it all the time now, rituals she can't break.

He looks back down at their fumbling, tangled hands and he widens his fingers.

"It's big," he tells her.

She laughs, caught breath, euphoria dizzying her. "Yeah, well, you know what I like." She strokes her fingers around his fingers, around the band, teasing. "Fits your big... hand perfectly."

This time his laughter is bright and joyful, and he catches her jaw in those wide hands and kisses her again, brief and happy, before wrapping his arms around her in one of those amazing bear-hugs.

"Soon, Kate Beckett."

One day soon.

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><p><em>If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come. It will not delay.<em>

_Habakkuk 2:3_


End file.
